Helpful Tips For Building A Remote-Working Start-Up

You’ll want to ensure that you create a comfortable working environment that ensures employee accountability and a sound culture. Equally, hiring without having in-person interviews and remaining on top of growth may be harder, but it's worth making these considerations before jumping straight in. We have some tips for those looking to build a remote-working start-up below. 

Create An Inclusive Environment: Allow Fun And Breaks

Remote working removes the cherished coffee breaks in offices that provide a chance for some downtime with colleagues. In the house, levels of disconnect can become magnified, which can lead many to feel disenfranchised. To combat this, creating a pleasant working environment will allow your employees to feel valued and included, which is essential. 

Creating time for social events and regular break periods is one of the best ways to create this inclusivity. Providing chances for social events or social hours where colleagues can come together builds rapport and makes people feel like part of a team. Similarly, encouraging regular breaks allows people the chance to take a moment away from work and is likely to combat unproductivity. Regular breaks allow workers to focus elsewhere briefly and return feeling rejuvenated for their work tasks. This could be a chance to complete some household chores, scroll social media, or play some online casino games such as poker, blackjack, and other games found here. 

Other ways to make the environment more inclusive are by scheduling regular team meetings that bring everyone together around the virtual table. This allows employees to chat with the team and extend their social circle. Whilst this can be a social event, it is also a chance for everyone to share ideas, introduce new faces, and share working practices. This sort of inclusion with other employees can also be explored through buddy systems or the pairing of employees. 

Trust For Productivity

If done well, stats suggest that remote workers return an increase of 30-40% in productivity levels. You will want to have a gentle approach to micromanaging and enforcing working schedules that come through a level of trust between management and staff, but there is a fine line to tread. Morale can be damaged by pressure on productivity, which can ironically reduce productivity and increase staff turnover. Equally, ensuring that the work is being done in a timeous and functional manner is important for the overall business. Focusing on outcomes, encouraging personal accountability and setting an example can all be effective methods to ensure that your employee feels comfortable performing, whilst not getting too comfortable that they are becoming unproductive.

Equip Your Team Properly

The reality of creating a working-from-home team is that you will save on office expenses of up to $11,000 per year per employee. However, setting your whole team up with the right equipment can be costly. There are certain demands that will need to be met in terms of connectivity, security, and hardware. Ensure you are providing company-issued laptops configured with the correct security settings and that these devices are insured. This way, you protect the business whilst also covering your employees. Informing workers of the policies and making sure they are clear on all procedures helps to solidify this. Equally, covering expenses for remote workers can be a nice gesture, but it is not essential. 

Have A Clear Plan

Creating a clear plan and outline of how you want the business to grow and develop is important when you create a new startup business with remote workers. 

Ensuring that your business is ready before hiring anyone is probably the best place to begin. Clarifying roles and the structure of employees allows you to have a clear path in place for any hiring process further down the line. Without a sound business plan that accounts for the expenses that the business is due to incur, you are jumping into something you are ill-prepared for. The business will also have to have a reliable and well-equipped infrastructure in place to allow for remote working.

Once you are confident you have the right blueprint in place, then it comes down to the hiring process, which has to be finely tuned to allow you to onboard the right personnel. You’ll want to ensure job adverts are tailored correctly, video interviews are rigorous and references are verified for reliability. The benefit of remote working is the larger pool of talent you have access to without the geographical barriers of traditional workplace recruitment schemes. 

After you have managed to hire the right staff, working on career development and progression for staff members can be an important way to fulfill professional growth. This can be key in retaining staff members. Performance meetings and clear KPIs are typical ways businesses manage this. Equally broad and deep training programmes allow staff to continue progressing their skills and bettering their ability. 

Final Thoughts

Building a startup that has remote workers requires discipline, planning, and scrutiny. Moving the workings of an office across the internet and into people's homes can be a tough gig. But it comes with its rewards for many. It can save costs, offer flexibility, and offer access to people or businesses that would otherwise not be available to you. 

Making sure you have identified and worked on the above issues should ensure that you can grow the start-up and thrive.